Government Audit Finds America's War on Drugs Leads to Overcrowded Prisons

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) acts as the Federal government's bookkeepers, ensuring that the various functions of the US government are carried out efficiently while providing accountability for these programs to the American people. And it's a good thing they do—just look at these results from a GAO report published last Wednesday.

The GAO found that the number of felons population federal prisons is quickly outpacing the facilities' rated capacities. In short, the number of people in Federal custody is too damn high. According to the report, prison populations grew by 9.5 percent in 2006-2011 vs 7 percent capacitive growth over the same period—nearly 39 percent of the entire federal penitentiary system now deals with some degree of overcrowding.

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The GAO goes on to implicate recent spikes in drug possession offenses and longer prison sentences for those convicted as a major source of overcrowding. 48 percent of federal prisoners in 2011 were there for drug-related offenses, nearly half the entire population. And they are now staying longer, 2.5 times longer than before we started this fanciful prohibition. [GAO via WPD - Image: WilleeCole/Shutterstock]

Fox News Takes Pot Shots at World's Most Influential Pot Smokers

Watch Bill O'Reilly dismissilvely work across the top row until he hits former President GW Bush. You can almost hear the little voice in his head (his producer, not any semblance of a conscience) start screaming, "ABORT, ABORT, IT'S A TRAP!!!" But them's the breaks when you do it live. Also that's an awesome list; three presidents, leaders of industry, olympic athletes, and a goddamn Supreme Court Justice. Sorry, we were talking about how potheads were losers and don't ever accomplish anything in life, right? Please, do carry on.

The Beatles - Rooftop Concert

In what would become the climax of Let It Be, the Fab Four climbed to the roof of the Apple building in January 1969 and began to play. As George Harrison later explained:

We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study.

We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and everybody came in saying, 'You can't do that! You've got to stop.'

Can you imagine the police response if a band tried to do this atop an Apple store in downtown London today? [Beatles Bible]

Bare - Helen Dallat

You really never can go home, can you? This charming and understated 2011 graduation film made at University of Wales, Newport chronicles one city bear's losing war of attrition against the forces of Mother Nature and her army of infuriating fallen leaves.[Cartoon Brew]

Yellow Bridges - El Ten Eleven

Cyriac Harris directed this music video for California-based electronica duo El Ten Eleven. He reportedly used nothing but Adobe After Effects, one log, a branch and two leaves to generate the fractal animations. The new album, Transitions, drops in October. YOU PREORDER NOW. [LaughingSquid]